Why are we here? What do players actually want?

yipykaye · July 2013

Hey Everyone.

I have been playing a few more foundrys this week and I got to thinking what do we really want out of the experiences.
Reading reviews I have seen a lot of 5 stars and plenty of plays for what I believe are very poorly edited, stacked encountered, storyless quests. The reviews don't seem to care how bad something was or how many stacked encounters are thrown in to make it "challenging". And yet for some of us who pride ourselves in having details positioned correctly, building a story that is worthy of our time we get the 1 star trolls.

So I ask what do

a) Players want? eg.. Short 15 min quest, Hack and Slash, Hour Long Episodes of High Drama.
and
b) Foundry Editors want? Lots of plays, being featured, Daily Eligible.

And who is more important? Do we create what makes us happy or what the consumers want?

Love your ideas and thoughts.

chili1179 · July 2013

You can't narrow it down to any one or two types that players want. Every player is different and their goal when selecting a quest may differ vastly, even from day to day.

But if you want averages, I think most of the player base wants a quest 20-30 minutes in length, with lots of action and a good story. This seems to work ok for my quests.

breagandaerth · July 2013

Judging by the threads in this forum I have determined exactly what people want.

They don't want anything for free and don't wish to pay for everything.

They want every class nerfed and no classes to be nerfed.

They want combat to be challenging and don't want combat to be challenging.

They want every bug to be fixed and no downtime for patches.

They wanted beta to not be called beta and now want the released version to be called beta.

They want all the supposed hoarded astral diamonds to be confiscated and don't want to pay too much for astral diamonds.

So good luck trying to get a consensus on anything.

klixan · July 2013

Well, I'll tell you what I look for in a foundry mission.

1. Easy difficulty! Yup, you heard right. I'm no longer playing the official game because it's just too darn hard. So I'm looking for easier alternatives. I've played many foundry missions, but I haven't finished all of them. If a mission uses hard monsters (hulks, ogres and the like) as normal encounters, I just quit the mission in disgust. I'll tolerate ONE hard encounter used for the final boss, but that's it!

2. Hack & Slash with a reasonably interesting story (but not too heavy) to tie it all together. If you want to do a long, epic story, then that's fine, but it better be good! For me, I find long winded dialogue just gets in the way of killing stuff. But it's always nice to have some sort of purpose or reason to kill stuff!

3. 30 mins to an hour is the sweet spot for me (that's if I'm playing a mission in lieu of an official quest). Now don't get me wrong, I do like the official quests, I just can't finish a lot of them. So if an Author can re-create that official quest experience, but without the crazy difficulty, then I'll shower them with stars!

4. Suitable for Daily! Now I've put this at the bottom of the list because it's actually a separate requirement. Notice I don't say 'eligible', because any mission can be eligible for the daily if it meets the time limit. What I mean by suitable, is something short and EASY! If I'm going to run a mission over and over just to get daily rewards, then I don't want any standard or hard encounters used in it! A light story is welcome, but not essential for these missions.

There you go. I don't know if I'm typical or represent the average gamer, but that's what I look for in a foundry mission. Hope that's useful.

wuhsin · July 2013

Most importantly, it needs to be an exploit, or a farm quest.

klixan · July 2013

Sorry, I think I should clarify a bit. When looking for a foundry mission for fun and leveling, points 1 to 3 are what I look for.

Daily missions are a different beast altogether. I think most people only run them because they have to. So short, easy and simple is all they want.

I do understand why Author's get so fed up with exploit missions making it to the top of the lists. But please don't take it to heart, there are lots of people who love a good story, others who thrive on challenge and so forth. Unfortunately, with the way the game works, those quick, easy (exploit) missions are always going to get more plays.

Would I run an exploit mission? Yes, I'm sad to admit it, but I would, if it was just to get my daily. Would I run it for entertainment? Absolutely not! They're bloody awful! But this is how Cryptic designed their game

wuhsin · July 2013

klixan wrote: »

Sorry, I think I should clarify a bit. When looking for a foundry mission for fun and leveling, points 1 to 3 are what I look for.

Daily missions are a different beast altogether. I think most people only run them because they have to. So short, easy and simple is all they want.

I do understand why Author's get so fed up with exploit missions making it to the top of the lists. But please don't take it to heart, there are lots of people who love a good story, others who thrive on challenge and so forth. Unfortunately, with the way the game works, those quick, easy (exploit) missions are always going to get more plays.

Would I run an exploit mission? Yes, I'm sad to admit it, but I would, if it was just to get my daily. Would I run it for entertainment? Absolutely not! They're bloody awful! But this is how Cryptic designed their game

This post was almost reassuring, until I got to the last paragraph.

yipykaye · July 2013

One of the things I am amazed by are the views on threads such as this but then inaction by the viewer.
This thread has 100 views yet only 8 people have actually voted in the poll.
My quest thread has 1000 views yet my quests have less than 30 plays across the 3 maps.(total plays are 50 but I must have done quite a few in testing after republishes.)
Why do so many people spend the time to read things on the forums but not spend the same time in the game?

nimmanu · July 2013

I don't really do polls like this, because my priorities are not the priority of the majority, so I'd skew the poll.

The majority want to get in and get out.

However, I personally build towards a niche. I am looking for the type that wants to be able to use my quest in multiple ways. I am looking for the kinds who want to be able to either: a. go in and get lost. wander and explore; OR b. go in and try a new route and have a new experience within the same quest; OR c. go in and pick option 1 every time and just get 'er done in a hurry.

I'm not trying to be all things to all people, but I am trying to give a variety of possibilities within one quest. The type of players that I'm NOT built for are the ones who want to do about 30 mins tops and have the full and complete story and be out the other end and never go back to the quest again. It's built for replayability and for the same type of player to be able to use it from one extreme to the other, depending on his or her mood.

So I think it's possible to give the "just give me the quest already" clan what they want within the same quest that you give the "I want an epic tale!" people what they want. I think it's almost impossible to do either of these with the "middle of the road" crowd. The middle of the road crowd is a lot more exacting in what they want and grow frustrated with either extreme. Whereas the extremes don't really care about (or even chuckle about) their opposite weighted crew.

It's like in writing. I can either "mainstream" my books by catering to the majority within my genre, or I can target and cater to my coveted niche. In which case, I must expect the loathing and the 1 star reviews that will inevitably come from the mainstream or the "I wanted a lot more <whatever>" bunch.

If making for the mainstream in this game, you need a lot of hard encounters in a small area so they can get through it within the 15 minutes allotted and with as many drops as possible within that amount of time. And if you make it even easier for them in some way, they'll be that much happier.

Then again, this is true of the American culture in this day-and-age almost across the board. It's the ADHD age in more ways than one. Instant gratification or GT*O of my face. As the currently over-used song goes, welcome to the new age...

voxx75 · July 2013

yipykaye wrote: »

One of the things I am amazed by are the views on threads such as this but then inaction by the viewer.
This thread has 100 views yet only 8 people have actually voted in the poll.
My quest thread has 1000 views yet my quests have less than 30 plays across the 3 maps.(total plays are 50 but I must have done quite a few in testing after republishes.)
Why do so many people spend the time to read things on the forums but not spend the same time in the game?

That's just the way it is. Ask anyone in marketing. You should only expect about a 3% response from any type of advertisement. (Which is exactly the response percentage given in your quest example, interestingly enough.) That's why huge dollar amounts are spent on marketing campaigns. The wider the net, the bigger the catch.

voxx75 · July 2013

I'm not sure I understand the poll responses, to be honest. If you're asking "what do players want?" then I think as authors, our #1 rule should be to try to design quests from a player's perspective. I'm not saying try to please everyone, because that's just not going to happen. In my opinion, a Foundry quest should fall into two general categories if you want to maximize play potential:

1) The Quickie:
Hack n' slash that is no longer than 20 minutes and eligible for the daily. Minimal dialogue, or at least optional. The vast majority of players won't read your quest text, sorry. Taking that into account, you need to make sure you have enough time sinks (i.e. encounters) to keep the average run time over 15 minutes. The trick is balancing, though. I don't know about most people, but I get immediately turned off by quests with one after another "challenging" encounters that are just there to eat up time. Let's face it, combat in this game isn't hard it's just expensive

Also, lots of traveling over vast maps should NOT be your time sink. You can do a lot with relatively small maps. These type quests can still be amazing if some thought and creativity are put into them. Both of the quests I've published so far kind of fit into this format.

2) The Story:
While the players who enjoy these type quests are in the minority, there's still a demand for really, and I mean REALLY well written story based quests. People who run these aren't doing it for their daily requirement, they want to experience an epic story. That's why if you really need to be a good writer to pull this off. "Whispers In The Void" is a great example of this, which actually combines elements from both types of these quests to great effect.

Of course there are always exceptions like jumping puzzles, spoofs/satires (and exploit maps) but those are more niche quest types and probably won't have wide appeal.

lltsnwn · July 2013

I am your best customer or worst depending on your foundry style:

Eligible for Daily
Hack and Slash - Monsters > Details
Get in, Get out - 15 Mins

First I won't do a foundry quest that is not eligible for the daily foundry credit. Second I will not do a quest that estimates a duration over 20 minutes. Third I won't do a quest that requires puzzles, searching through text to discover what I need to do next, etc.

Once I find a good quest I very often try other quests that the author has also made. I ALWAYS tip foundry quest creators each time I do it. I always leave feedback though sometimes its bug or annoying aspect style and others are well done, etc.

yipykaye · July 2013

voxx75 wrote: »

I'm not sure I understand the poll responses, to be honest. If you're asking "what do players want?" then I think as authors, our #1 rule should be to try to design quests from a player's perspective.

I guess what I am trying to say, are we making foundrys to impress other foundry writers (Any quest that has detail and story well combined) or are we all here to make AD from players running a quickie and hopefully tipping.(Fat chance but hey)

The poll can be split into three sections really hence the multiple choices.
1 - Type of quest
2 - Length of Playtime
3 - Who do we want to impress.

So far the poll is telling me they have to be a daily quest but less than an hour and we are making the efforts for fellow authors not the
general publics often impossible requirements. So far valid data.

beckylunatic · July 2013

If your quest sounds interesting and I can find it (sometimes this is a problem, can't even find new publications by shortcode), I might do it even if not eligible for dailies, or to try to help you get it eligible for dailies. I'm in this for story over fighting, so I'm a details-matter person. I also don't mind if your mission is long, though I do have to make sure I allow myself enough time, because my time to complete will likely be even longer.

I really do not think I'm a typical player though. But feel free to cater to me and I'll love you and subscribe to you and at least try to promote your quests if I thought they were great.

nimmanu · July 2013

yipykaye wrote: »

I guess what I am trying to say, are we making foundrys to impress other foundry writers (Any quest that has detail and story well combined) or are we all here to make AD from players running a quickie and hopefully tipping.(Fat chance but hey)

The poll can be split into three sections really hence the multiple choices.
1 - Type of quest
2 - Length of Playtime
3 - Who do we want to impress.

So far the poll is telling me they have to be a daily quest but less than an hour and we are making the efforts for fellow authors not the
general publics often impossible requirements. So far valid data.

I don't think it's very valid, personally. I think that the number of authors who even post here is miniscule compared to the number that use the foundry. Also people who use the foundry and post here, and will fill out a poll, have a certain mindset. If you wanted a more realistic poll, you'd want to poll authors across the board, not only ones who use the forum and/or will fill in voluntary polls.

That's one of the biggest problems with polls as statistical analyzers, in my personal opinion. It doesn't take into account the mindset of those who won't do polls, nor the mindset of those whom they didn't poll because they don't frequent the area/place that they chose to house the poll.

BUT, I do think it's an interesting exercise and worth the time.

yipykaye · July 2013

nimmanu wrote: »

If you wanted a more realistic poll, you'd want to poll authors across the board, not only ones who use the forum and/or will fill in voluntary polls.
It doesn't take into account the mindset of those who won't do polls, nor the mindset of those whom they didn't poll because they don't frequent the area/place that they chose to house the poll.

Those who do not voice their opinion must not have an opinion. Forcing a poll onto everyone would simply push the data further afield just like our electoral systems making donkey votes because we have to vote.

We can never please everyone thats why its fun to poke people with a stick for a reaction

voxx75 · July 2013

yipykaye wrote: »

I guess what I am trying to say, are we making foundrys to impress other foundry writers (Any quest that has detail and story well combined) or are we all here to make AD from players running a quickie and hopefully tipping.(Fat chance but hey)

The poll can be split into three sections really hence the multiple choices.
1 - Type of quest
2 - Length of Playtime
3 - Who do we want to impress.

So far the poll is telling me they have to be a daily quest but less than an hour and we are making the efforts for fellow authors not the
general public often impossible requirements. So far valid data.

Put simply, if you're creating quests for any other reason than "I enjoy creating quests with the Foundry" then you're doing it wrong. Who you want to appeal to is entirely up to you, but if you're trying to make a quest fit into a certain mold and not something you'd personally like to play, YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A BAD TIME.

My biggest pet peeve with some quests I've tried is when authors try to make the "most-est epic quest evah". An hour plus dungeon crawl with stacks of encounters and lots of back and forth - or worse - a maze-like map with "Find a way out" as the objective...No thanks. It's not worth the Reward Chest Full of Nothing at the end unless your quest is (1) amazingly written and/or (2) it's short and fun. (See my prior post.)

karitr · July 2013

Lol, I thought the player/author choices were so people could identify themselves as one or the other. Perhaps you should make it clear in the OP what those are for and if you only want author's opinions/votes perhaps make that clear too?

Unfortunately I already voted, so I may skew your results.

In the spirit of 'most important' I chose only the one - "epic - 1 hour plus". But a campaign with several small chapters can fulfil that requirement. I also have eclectic tastes and can enjoy short, long, puzzles, lots of combat, story heavy, story-lite, humour etc. Basically, anything as long as it is well constructed.

I think the best Foundrys are ones where the author has played to their strengths, whatever the length or genre of quest.

darkjeff · July 2013

Ideally, each Foundry quest should be at around 30 minutes, and qualify for the Daily. However, that doesn't mean I don't want epic stories - it just means those stories should be broken up into smaller chapters and linked into a campaign.

That serves multiple purposes. Not only would we be able get the Dailies done just by following one campaign, but it would function as a checkpoint save system - multiple chapters mean we can place the campaign on hold to be continued another time. (I once had to redo a 1.5 hour long Foundry mission three times. I disconnected once, and then I simply ran out of gaming time when I tried to redo it.) Breaking a long campaign into shorter chapters would also allow us to clear our inventories and respond to whatever is happening outside of the instance, which greatly improves quality of life.

beckylunatic · July 2013

darkjeff makes a very good point about breaking up a campaign into chapters. While I'm not put right off by lengthy play time if I have time, we are often limited by how long we can spend gaming, so there is that hesitation... will I lose my progress and have to start over? Is this going to take so long I'll have to quit before I'm done?

dzogen · July 2013

yipykaye wrote: »

Hey Everyone.

I have been playing a few more foundrys this week and I got to thinking what do we really want out of the experiences.
Reading reviews I have seen a lot of 5 stars and plenty of plays for what I believe are very poorly edited, stacked encountered, storyless quests. The reviews don't seem to care how bad something was or how many stacked encounters are thrown in to make it "challenging". And yet for some of us who pride ourselves in having details positioned correctly, building a story that is worthy of our time we get the 1 star trolls.

So I ask what do

a) Players want? eg.. Short 15 min quest, Hack and Slash, Hour Long Episodes of High Drama.
and
b) Foundry Editors want? Lots of plays, being featured, Daily Eligible.

And who is more important? Do we create what makes us happy or what the consumers want?

Love your ideas and thoughts.

create what you like, not what you "think" people want.

Mini-maxers like to hit their dailies as fast as possible/ feel like they're beating the system.

i got a tell from a guy yesterday who made me follow him around in my own quest - so he could show me how he could beat my daily eligible quest in 6 minutes. i think a lot of people enjoy that sort of thing.

lolsorhand · July 2013

voxx75 wrote: »

Put simply, if you're creating quests for any other reason than "I enjoy creating quests with the Foundry" then you're doing it wrong. Who you want to appeal to is entirely up to you, but if you're trying to make a quest fit into a certain mold and not something you'd personally like to play, YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A BAD TIME.

My biggest pet peeve with some quests I've tried is when authors try to make the "most-est epic quest evah". An hour plus dungeon crawl with stacks of encounters and lots of back and forth - or worse - a maze-like map with "Find a way out" as the objective...No thanks. It's not worth the Reward Chest Full of Nothing at the end unless your quest is (1) amazingly written and/or (2) it's short and fun. (See my prior post.)

I made The Dwarven Tale, which I hate to play. Favour for a guildie. (Mostly because I'm into story foundries.)

yipykaye · July 2013

Just played a rich vein of quality quests. I was beginning to think there weren't any out there but you guys are proving me wrong. well done Peeps. Poll is starting to even out.

yipykaye · July 2013

Looking for more poll entries

Why are we here? What do players actually want?

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